


when the party's over

by baliset



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Baltimore Crabs, Gen, big crabby found family vibes, post-season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:35:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26730751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baliset/pseuds/baliset
Summary: It goes like this: the Crabs beat the Tigers.(or: after the parade, the crabs come home.)
Relationships: Forrest Best & Nagomi McDaniel, Kennedy Loser & Forrest Best, Kennedy Loser & Nagomi McDaniel, Kennedy Loser/Tillman Henderson if you squint really hard, Luis Acevedo & Pedro Davids, Parker Parra & Sutton Dreamy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	when the party's over

It goes like this: the Crabs beat the Tigers. They become the Season 8 Champions, and block a chance at ascension - which might be good or bad, depending who you ask. There’s a parade back in Baltimore that absolutely ruins city traffic, and people come anyway because a Baltimore sports team that _wins_ is something to tear the place apart over.

The parade ends. The Crabs go back to Tillman’s parents’ place in Potomac, park Axel in front, and find the driveway already lined with cars. The Firefighters are here, with Declan’s Xbox, a hose full of Royal Crown Malort, and enough pizza to feed an army. The Garages are here, too. Not just their current lineup, but the _original_ Garages, plus all of the teams they’ve found themselves flung to over the course of the season. They’re here for Luis - and to play, it turns out, because the Garages never go anywhere without instruments.

It goes like this: Tot Fox gets the Jazz Hands on the phone, and Paula Turnip calls the Tigers. Someone from the Jazz Hands calls the Spies, and someone from the Tigers calls the Sunbeams. The Crabs get to see Ollie again. They see Holden, too, and Valentine, and Winnie, and Dot (who is in a shell but the Moist Talkers bring them anyway). Someone dials up the Head Office to invite Parker, mostly as a joke. In a matter of hours, Tillman’s parents’ place is so densely packed with the bodies of every single blaseball team that it’s hard to move. The Garages have set up a makeshift stage in the living room, and people are dancing. The smell of pizza and Natty Boh is thick in the air like a fog.

Nagomi’s shell is out on the back porch. People tend to give it a wide berth, Kennedy’s noticed. Nobody seems to have a problem riding on Axel’s shell, or taking pictures with Jessica Telephone’s, or taping a beer can to one of the Tacos’ shelled pitchers so it looks like they’re partying. But Nagomi’s shell, people avoid. Maybe because she’s been there the longest, and people are afraid of what’s happening to her in there. What she’ll be like when she gets out. It’s been two years, after all.

Kennedy ends up on the back porch, too, partially shoved there by the press of bodies in the house and partially of his own volition. He’s never been one for parties. It’s great that the Crabs won, he’s still riding the high, but if one more person who he barely knows slaps him on the back and says “Loser!”, he might lose his mind. Hanging out with the Firefighters is one thing - hanging out with all nineteen other teams in the league simultaneously is another.

“Hi, Nagomi,” he says, and sinks down into a pool chair next to the shell. It’s actually a little shocking that nobody has found the pool yet, but Kennedy can’t say he minds. “I guess maybe nobody’s said this to you, but, uh, congratulations.”

Nagomi’s shell, predictably, is silent.

“Everybody keeps acting like we did it without you,” Kennedy says. He takes a sip of the Natty Boh he’s been nursing for the past hour, not really because he enjoys drinking it, but because it makes him feel like he has something to do. “I don’t know if that’s fair. Even if we weren’t putting you out in the field, you’re still part of the team. But you _did_ catch a lot of balls.” He pauses. “Maybe you didn’t know.”

He reaches out to put a hand against the giant peanut shell, surprised as always to find it warm to the touch. There’s no way to tell if Nagomi is awake in there, or in some kind of suspended animation. Maybe she’s sleeping by choice, just to pass the time. Or maybe she can hear everything, but can’t be heard herself. Jessica and Sexton are the only two players who could answer that question, but Jessica politely changes the subject every time it comes up, and Sexton is a horse.

“Anyway,” Kennedy says. “Congratulations. Your first championship.”

He withdraws his hand from the shell. There’s a sudden rustling that startles him, and he almost spills his beer thinking that it’s coming from _inside_ the peanut, until he realizes it’s from the tall topiaries surrounding the perimeter of the pool. The leaves are rustling almost violently. Kennedy watches them with trepidation, until the red tip of a crab claw breaches one, and he feels his heart leave his throat and settle back in his chest. Spidery, chitinous legs grope out of the dark, bursting free of the bushes, until the wooden-doll body of Forrest Best bursts free as well and smacks against the edge of the pool with an almost comical _thunk_.

“You left before the parade,” Kennedy says, leaning back in his chair again.

Forrest lifts themself up on their spindly crab legs and skitters to where Nagomi’s shell is resting, looming over it. Their claws make tiny, rapid sounds on the stone of the patio like raindrops.

 _Sorry_ , they sign, their clumsy mannequin hand rotating against their chest. _Too loud._

“Well, you’ll hate it _here,_ ” Kennedy says. He genuinely has no idea why Forrest is here - parties generally aren’t their thing, except when it’s a team outing, or just a few of the Crabs hanging out together. Regardless, he can’t say he minds the company. At the very least, Forrest won’t try to talk to him about the game.

 _Wanted to see_ , Forrest signs, then simply points at Nagomi’s shell in lieu of signing her name.

“Nagomi? She’s fine.”

Forrest’s body is still for a long moment, then springs back to life briefly to sign one word. _Lonely._

Kennedy doesn’t have a good answer for that one. He crosses one leg over the other and sips his beer, watching Forrest hover silently around Nagomi’s shell. The two of them were friends, or something approaching it, when Nagomi was in Baltimore before. Some of the Crabs have speculated that Forrest can speak to Nagomi psychically through the shell. Nobody knows if it’s true, and it seems too private to ask.

“Do you think she knows?” he asks, instead. “That we won?”

Forrest considers the shell for a long moment, then swivels their head to consider Kennedy. Finally, they nod, without offering any further explanation.

It’s comforting, in a sense, Kennedy supposes. Nagomi knows that she helped the Crabs win a second championship, knows that she’s a part of the team - a part of the family. But she can’t do much _besides_ know.

Something soft brushes Kennedy’s ankle, and he jolts in his chair, spilling some Natty Boh on his shirt as he instinctively draws his knees up to his chest. On the ground, between his legs, Tot Fox gives him a squinty-eyed look of amusement.

“Sorry,” Kennedy says, out of habit, then, “Jesus, Tot, you could warn a guy.”

Predictably, Tot says nothing. Just pads over to Nagomi’s shell and sits on his haunches in front of it, like he’s guarding it.

“How’d you get out here, anyway?” Kennedy asks Tot, because if the fox can open doors now, then they’re all in trouble. A lot of his tactics for keeping the team in line hinge on Tot not having opposable thumbs.

Tot turns his head and flicks an ear at the door that leads back inside to the party. Brock is leaning against the wall next to it, one hand cupped protectively around a joint in his mouth as the other hand lights the end of it. He must feel the eyes on him, because he looks up, and gives Kennedy a lazy half-wave.

“Tot came out with me,” he says, pocketing his lighter again. “Saw you two all alone out here and figured you wouldn’t mind.”

“Nagomi’s here too,” Kennedy says, just as Forrest points empathetically at Nagomi’s shell to make the same point.

Brock takes the joint out of his mouth, and smiles. “I guess she is.”

It goes like this: Brock pulls up a chair to sit with them, and Tot stays on the ground, intelligent fox eyes flicking from person to person as the conversation goes on. The rest of the pitchers filter outside looking for Brock, and Tosser falls asleep in a lounge chair while Monty and Finn roughhouse in the pool. The noise of the party filters away, becomes background radiation. Parker and Sutton come out with drinks in hands and arms around each others’ waists. Pedro and Luis wander towards the pool, having an animated conversation in Spanish, sit down near Brock, and end up staying.

The door to the back patio opens one final time, and it’s Tillman, his ball cap turned backwards, a pair of sunglasses perched high on his forehead. He drinks in the scene, wrestling a vape pen out of his pocket.

“Hey, nerds,” he says, through a cloud of vapor that smells so strongly of artificial watermelon that Kennedy almost chokes on it. “Dunno if you’ve noticed, but there’s a party happening.”

Any other time, this might be when the spell breaks, and everyone slowly heads back inside to get more beer, or dance, or whatever they were doing. But that isn’t what happens. The Crabs share a look, and Kennedy stretches in his chair, putting a hand once again on Nagomi’s shell.

“We’re keeping Nagomi company,” he says.

“Weird,” Tillman says pointedly, but he’s already walking over towards the group. Before Kennedy knows what’s going on, a surprisingly solid weight hits him, and he realizes Tillman has sprawled entirely across his lap.

“If I was in one of those shells,” Tillman says, “I would just bust out of it.”

“Shut up, Tillman,” Sutton says, tossing a cocktail umbrella at him.

“You absolutely are not strong enough to do that, Tillman,” Parker says, which opens some sort of floodgate, because the entire team then begins talking over one another about what they would do if they were shelled, how they would spend the time, how they’d break out.

It goes like this: the Crabs are two-time Internet Series Champions, and they ignore their own victory party to talk all night on Tillman’s parents’ back porch. Most of them fall asleep out there, Kennedy with his hand still resting against Nagomi’s shell, feeling the warmth radiating from within it.

In a way, he thinks, this is better than the parade.

**Author's Note:**

> guess what: the crabs are a weird found family and i have feelings about them.
> 
> go listen to ollie - when the season's over (made by the crabs' social media manager josh) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRtDBPuD6t8
> 
> i'm not in the main discord but you can find me in the crabitat, or on twitter @corpserevivers!


End file.
